It is snowing and that means it is time for the local morning newscasts to fall into the normal winter storm clichés get trotted out. Reporters standing out in the cold and snow? Check. Live shots from some highway depot (bonus points if in New Jersey, natch)? Check. Pictures of the aftermath of people who can’t drive in the snow? Check. School closings? Check. Some sort of graphic branding for the coverage? Check.
The coverage seemed a bit subdued compared to the past, which seemed to focus on sending as many reporters as humanly possible out to stand various places in the tri-state area to tell us that it was snowing. Most of the stations sent out two or three reporters instead of a vast D-Day-esque mobilization.
Some random observations on the coverage which was basically all the same:
- It seems that the only stations without their own logo endowed outerwear line are WNBC and WPIX. Who wouldn’t want an Eyewitness News parka?
- WCBS' "Eye on the Storm" branding, which they have used before, is still as clever as ever since it is a play on the CBS "eye" logo.
- It seemed that Long Island got the least coverage, but then again they tend to get the least snow and the storm isn’t having a flooding effect there.
- Kudos to WNYW for not only having large, easy-to-read school closing listings, but showing New Jersey towns that don't even watch WNYW (aka Fox 5). Note to Fox 5: having school closings from Camden County just makes you look like you are padding things, thinking about viewers who have relatives in southern Jersey or have no idea about the geography of the Garden State. Lindenwold is about 95 miles from New York City and is actually in the Philadelphia market (20 miles away from that city) – very much out of range even with a really good antenna.
- WNBC’s graphics for school closings were clunky compared: Other stations just had a single line at the bottom of the screen, while WNBC opted for a two-line system that clashed with the lower third graphics (the ones that tell you some combination of who, what or where). It did allow WNBC to get the type larger without doing some sort of weird thing with boxes on screen, so it's sort of a wash, but it just reminds us of the Saturday Night Live skit News Force, where the live coverage is taken over by graphics, charts and other elements.
